STENSON DRIVES TOWARDS TITLE
Win or lose, Aussies eye clean sweep Hook sinks Wasps’ bid
THE roar could be heard all the way to Dunblane. Andy Murray was into the finals of the ATP World Tour Finals and 17,000 ecstatic fans were going crazy.
The roof on London’s O2 Arena was almost ripped from its moorings when Milos Raonic dumped one last, exhausted forehand into the net to end a three hour and 38 minute rollercoaster of a semi-final and give victory to Murray 5-7 7-6 7-6.
It was the longest three-set match the tournament had ever seen and it was the longest three-set match played anywhere on the tour, on any surface, this year. And Murray won it. Just.
Twice he served for the match and twice he was broken. Three times he held match point in the third-set tiebreak and three times Raonic snatched them away from him. And then Raonic made a final error and the place went wild.
Murray said: “It was an amazing atmosphere. The longer the match went on, the louder and better the crowd got. And that’s what we play for – matches like this and arenas like this. It was a great match.
“I had to fight very, very hard. It was tough going into the third-set tie-break, having been broken twice serving for the match. I was just lucky I got that break at the end of the tiebreak.”
Until that moment, no one had any idea how the result would turn out. Murray had fought tooth and nail to get to his first final at the O2, Raonic had come with a plan and he had stuck to it like glue.
The outcome came down to a single shot – Raonic missed it and Murray was the winner. He said: “It’s tough to say right now where this match rates in my career.
“It was one of the harder matches I’ve played indoors. They are never normally this long and you don’t expect that, especially against someone with a serve like Milos. But we had so many long games, long points – it was really, really tough.”
But this was Murray’s second marathon in the past four days. On Wednesday, he took three hours and 20 minutes to beat Kei Nishikori and now he had taken even longer to beat the big Canadian with the terrifying serve.
He has no idea how much he has left in the tank for today’s final but at least he knows this is the last big push of the year.
If Murray wins today he is sure of ending the year ranked world No. 1. He said: “Obviously I’m tired. I’ve played so much tennis the last few months. I’ll just give it my best effort.”
It was not all celebrations and rejoicing in the Murray family last night. Andy’s brother Jamie, newly installed with partner Bruno Soares as the year-end No.1 doubles team, were beaten in the semi-finals by Rajeev Ram and Raven Klaasen 6-1 6-4. HENRIK STENSON’S back nine birdie blitz has put him in sight of the European Order of Merit title.
The Swede may be trailing leader Victor Dubuisson by eight shots in the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. But he is poised to finish top of the order of merit after five birdies in the last seven holes helped him get a march on his main rivals for the season-ending honour.
After bogeys on four, six and 10, he made his move in the closing holes, including chipping in from the greenside rough on the 16th.
He said: “I turned it around at least and, yeah, I’ve got to be pretty pleased with the way we managed to play on the way home.”
His two-under par round of 70 moved him to five under for the tournament, level with world No.2 Rory McIlroy, who had earlier threatened one of his familiar surges to give himself a sniff of a chance to usurp Stenson.
However, the Northern Irishman found the water with his second shot on 18, and the eventual bogey left him four under for the day. WHATEVER the result, Australia will finish today cleaning their own changing room – and Johnathan Thurston wouldn’t have it any other way.
The three-time Golden Boot winner is set to step out for the last time in this country, having confirmed that next year’s World Cup will be his international swansong.
But he believes the Kangaroos’ long-term future is in safe hands with the no-nonsense approach of coach Mal Meninga, which includes sweeping the dressing rooms post match.
Thurston said: “Mal has put the team in a direction that they want to go in, and the team has certainly bought into it.
“You do those little things that go unnoticed, cleaning the sheds and things like that. We’re trying to leave a legacy.” WASPS missed the chance to go top of the Aviva Premiership as they were outgunned 36-18 by a fiercely committed Gloucester at Kingsholm.
Wasps could make little headway against the home pack.
Richard Hibbard, Mark Atkinson, Matt Scott, Charlie Sharples and Henry Purdy scored the Gloucester tries, Wasps mustering a couple of Thomas Young efforts.
New Zealand ruined the party as Rochelle Clark became England’s most-capped woman of all-time.
The Red Roses slipped to a 25-20 defeat at Twickenham Stoop in Clark’s 116th appearance.